The TGV Est Européen, the new high-speed train line connecting Paris to Strasbourg and beyond the German border to Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Munich, was inaugurated Thursday with all the inevitable pomp and circumstance of a cross-border venture grandly described as altering “the geography of Europe”.

Commercial services will only begin in June, but already rival German and French trains are testing the new track enabling them to travel even faster than on existing high-speed lines. It will take only 3 hours 45 minutes to travel from Paris to Frankfurt, 3 hours 50 minutes to reach Stuttgart and 2 hours 20 minutes to Strasbourg.